Saturday, March 5, 2011

A Stain on Justice

The trial court verdict on Ajmal Kasab came out ten months earlier which gave a judgments for swinging him by the neck to death. However, an appeal was given to the High Court whose judgment was required to uphold his capital punishment. On the 21st of February, The High Court of Bombay also gave the same judgment, with leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

However, this inordinate delay in decision making looks like a farcical situation to the entire world. Why provide an enemy so much time on a trial whose decision can be guessed before the trial started. Is that not stretching the justice system to an extreme where people lose all hopes on justice? If Kasab is not hung within a year of the terrible incidents of 26/11, then what is the situation for other criminals who have not even waged war on our nation?

Two years have gone by since the incident, and yet the people who have felt the pain of losing their loved ones has not dimmed because of the continuous focus on Kasab’s trial, which only stops the wounds from healing. It is simply impossible to find out a reason why fast track courts have not been set up for this trial, the biggest criminal trial of these days. If a trial as important as this is not handed to the fast track courts, then what does qualify? Where the whole world was witness to the brutal way in which the terrorists were mowing down people with their guns, what is the need for evidence, proof, and confession of a person to hand out a judgment?

India has a very strict hand on matters which are against public policy. Even though this particular incident is not directly related to public policy, yet it may be linked very easily to public sentiments. To continue awarding life to a terrorist at the cost of people’s money,is preposterous, and is amazing to see that the courts have not handed it over to Fast Track Courts to deal with the matter as it appeals to the public sentiment. It seems that our country is only interested in showing that our justice system is very liberal, rather than providing justice.